Gaited horses: Ambling, Racking and Tolt

Skib

Skib

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Dec 21, 2003
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I'd like some info please about gaited horses.
[Where has the General section gone? Where we used to discuss general topics like this - general questions that we didnt want in Cafe area because they would be wiped away.]
Anyway I was reading about horses in Tudor England and discovered they had gaited horses.
Ambling and racking (says the book) were both four beat gaits. i/e/ the footfall like in walk.
Does anyone know the difference between ambling and racking?
Is one of them the same as Icelandic Tolt? which I have seen though I havent ridden it.
Someone on NR once imported a Tennessee walking horse. That too must be a gaited horse? And is the walk of a walking horse the same as a Tolt, or the gaits known in Tudor times?

I have looked at some U tube vids but can work out the exact definition of these words.
 
Hi Skib,
My friend breeds Rocky Mountain horses, (one of the few breeders in England, if not the only!) they are gaited, they do a fourbeat gait, it is SO SO smooth like gliding along. but at canter speed. VERY comfy.
I'll give you her email if you pm me, she is quite knowledgeable about gaits, and wrote a very interesting article about why she chose to breed them, mentioning the Palfreys of Tudor England. They come in some pretty colours too, altho as Mark Rashid's book says 'A good horse is never a bad colour'!! :happy:
pic of one of her fillys, a chocolate silver dapple, I think!
_MG_7988_4_1.jpg

You can also find out more about gaited and walking horses here

http://http://gaitedhorsesnaturally.ning.com/
 
eml said:
Wikipedia has a clear explanation of the foot falls in modern horses. Not sure about the historic connection.
Click to expand...

That Wikipedia article is really detailed ... i hadn't realised that there were so many gaited horses around, nor that ambling and racking were four-beat, not two-beat (like camels?).

Chaucer's Wife of Bath rode an ambling horse, but I'm not sure if ambling meant the same then as it does now ...
 
Today I went to visit my friend who breeds Rocky Mountain horses, I explained about the thread here and later she sent this email.........

you may wish to paste this info in a reply to New Rider:

There is a lot of useful info on the web about gaits and gaiting and definitions. However, your contact will find that there is something of a muddle because the terms are not always used consistently. Basically, the rack is one of the four-beat gaits, but it is on the fast side; the term 'amble' is not used anymore, at least not in the US as far as I can tell, but my guess would be that it is close to the 'running walk' (probably slower than a rack). Interestingly, the term seems to have existed in old English and some of the early Fell Ponies were amblers, known as 'rakkers'. In my opinion it is greatly to be regretted that the Fell Pony Society and all the other native breed societies don't allow this movement, and therefore we have lost this precious genetic resource in the UK. The predecessors of the Fell Pony were apparently known as Galloways, and they and the Irish hobbies (also gaited) were exported to the Americas with the early settlers, and are in the ancestry of the Rocky Mountain horses that I am helping to reintroduce to this country:

http://www.fellpony.f9.co.uk/fells/monks/monks.htm

The Icelandic horse is of course also based on these early British horses, which were taken to Iceland by the Vikings one thousand years ago, and then selectively bred to reinforce hardiness and the 'tolt' (four-beat gait; they also do a flying pace). Natural selection also ensured the survival of the fittest because of the harsh climate there.

In Chaucer's time gaited horses, usually known as palfreys, were common and highly prized for long-distance riding - on pilgrimages, for instance (the Canterbury Tales describes them).

Arabs, Morgans and other breeds also have included gaited stock, which have been selected out. However, some people are trying to preserve them, such as Gary Seibert in the US who has lovely gaited Morgans. His site is a very useful source of info, and includes videos:

http://www.gaitedmorgans.com/

Following one of the links on that site leads to this useful diagram of the gait spectrum:

http://gaitedmorganinfo.com/

However, that spectrum shows the 'rack' on the lateral side of square, which I'm not sure everyone would agree with. The saddle rack is slower, I believe, than the speed of rack shown by some Racking Horses (a breed). They are on Youtube and your contact can type that in and see lots of them. My favourite is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HuEccBod-0

It shows the fantastic Johnny Demetris, riding bareback on the great Falcon Rowdy stallion - showing that the rack is comfortable enough to ride at great speed without a saddle and with only one arm!! You need the soundtrack on to enjoy this to the utmost.

I hope this helps - as they say!
If anyone wants a bit of gait in a foal they are welcome to use one of my stallions!
from E
 
I am just so grateful to everyone who has answered, and specially appreciative of you and your kind friend, Aoifa. Please thank her.
I 'm a historian and the book I was reading was by Peter Edwards, Horse and Man in Early Modern England. I dont have my own copy (yet) and made very few notes

but yes, he does mention Galloways from South West Scotland, so I somehow assumed they still existed. O dear.

He also says Irish hobbies were much in demand and says they had Spanish blood -

I will look at all the links your friend has suggested - thank you so much.
 
Galloways were reputed to be the decendents of horses that escaped from wrecks of the Spanish Armada and were natural pacers (as opposed to trotters). I think they had a strong influence on the breeding of both fells and dales, both of whom have been known to be gaited (as are other native breeds such as Shetlands).
 
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